A new way to get Games...Trading?

I just discovered a whole new way to get games. A friend told me that they had sites where you trade games with people. I was thinking that if it was any good I would have heard about it. Out of curiosity, I checked them out and I liked what I saw. The sites I found are Swaptree.com and gametz.com. The premise is simple, you put up games you have, you put up games you want. You contact people who have matching preferences and you trade. Its really that simple and all you pay is shipping. Ill be trying this for a while to see if it works out. This just might be the way to get to play every holiday release game without taking a hit to the wallet.

*If you'd like to check them out, I put up links for them on the right tool bar on the site.

Resistance 2 be careful... online not for all

This is a warning to all ps3 owners hoping to buy Resistance 2. Don’t be scared, it’s an awesome game, wonderful campaign. It sent chills down my spine and gave me memorable boss battles, the whole shebang. However, the reason you really get an fps is for the online multiplayer, that’s what gives it the lasting value (Call of Duty 4).

The resistance competitive online multiplayer is definitely not what I expected. It‘s way too arcade styled. You can pick any weapon, anyone at all and they all suck. Its just like game developers to think people like to dance around in circles shooting bullets until some jerk off comes out from hiding to kill the weakened players is fun. Basically, I felt the player detached from the ground environment, it was extremely messy, and it takes a lot of shots to kill an opposing player. It might be fun if you liked to use Juggernaut in CoD4(anyone under 12), but personally I don’t like that play style. I really enjoy the less life you had in CoD4 and from what I’ve experienced, CoD: World at War is Cod4 with WW2 weapons. What I got from resistance 2 online is whoever starts shooting first, wins. One thing resistance online did right was the co-op which is phenomenal. I am talking strictly competitive (because who cares about co-op) online when I say CoD is better.

Bottom Line:If you are getting a fps for its online multiplayer and own a ps3 I say get Call of Duty: World at War

Little Big Planet: A "little", Maybe "BIG" Problem

As any ps3 owner knows, Little Big Planet, or LPB is one of the few marquee games made just for them. Any one who has played it or heard about it knows what it is, and how great it is. If not, I will tell you now. Little Big Planet is a revolutionary game where you control a cute avatar (sackboy) though side scrolling plat forming like we’ve never seen before. The revolutionary part is that not only does the game have wonderful levels, but you can create your own and play other user created levels online. This is all done through an innovative level creation system right from your console. This game only limits you by imagination.

While all this sounds wonderful, the system itself comes with a flaw. As I have played games online, the user levels have lacked creativity, most of them just being a box with tons of free points for trophies, and then asking to be hearted. It wouldn’t be bad but the sheer number of them is astounding. There are only a few fun, imaginative user created levels, and they are hard to find. The system in where they place the levels on pages doesn’t make sense as some really bad ones will find their way to the front. The fault with LPB wouldn’t be the game, but the players. Hopefully as people get more used to the system, quality levels will appear, but if that doesn’t happen LBP online will fail. Despite this it is one of the best games out there, and gives us something new and definitely outside the box.

mercenaries 2: The Epic Fail

I had plans to review Mercs 2, however something stopped me, and that was forcing myself to continue that God awful game. To tell you the truth I played 4 missions and I saw that it was just a joke. What I saw was horrible voice acting, a horrible aim system, low quality graphics, and dumb/repetitive missions. I would review it but I can’t bring myself to put it back in my Ps3. It is the worst next-gen game I’ve played. Don’t buy it, don’t rent it, and don’t play it at your friends house because this game is an Epic Fail.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Review

When making Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the creative directors repeated the same phrase before each meeting: “what is the purpose of the game? To kick someone’s ass with the force.” If they came through with anything expected for the game, they definitely came through with that.

TFU follows Darth Vader’s secret apprentice known only by his codename “Starkiller”, as he roams the galaxy doing Vader’s bidding and finding out that what Vader says might not be what he wants to do. This is actually a very interesting story element to a game considering it I continuing the true star wars story, and not a completely different story loosely based the star wars universe. The story itself is very good and does a nice job of bridging the gap between episodes 3 and 4. The voice acting is decent for every character however starkiller was done fantastically. While the story is very interesting, the way the game presents it is questionable. What I mean by that is that there are not enough cut scenes to cover the entire story. You also don’t get the character development I was expecting from the game. To give you an example, Starkiller is supposed to be tutored by the jedi , Rahm Kota during the game. However there were no scenes of training sequences or really anything between the two of them. All of the scenes almost seem rushed as to spit out the story and move on which is fine for some games but a game like this where the story is a big element, that character development and drama are very important.

The game play itself is fun. You have your over the top force powers, and get to kill stylishly and any way you want. This ranges from grabbing an opponent and dropping them off a ledge to my personal favorite, the lightning grenade. Where you grab and enemy and charge him up with lightning, when you thrown him at his buddies he explodes. This is sort of tarnished in later game play when you face bigger opponents such as AT ST’s. These are immune to the stylish kill and you pretty much revert to hack and slash. Once you get these big enemies to low health you can finish them off with a quick time event. These are easily pulled off, but they are meant to be, as the player is supposed to enjoy the beautiful and pretty awesome cinematics. In a game like this it needs to be simple and easy to take out the big targets, just make the large enemies more damaging. Not to mention the fighting just gets repetitive through the course of the game. This makes the best enemy in the game the basic storm trooper, which you can use all your powers and your imagination to kill.

The level system is pretty interesting and offers some customization to starkiller. You earn spheres to spend in your stats, force powers or available combos. To earn the spheres you either gain levels or find them in holorons. When you level up the force powers, you pretty much make them stronger and have more ability. For example the force grab is able to grab multiple items, and the force lighting ars out to multiple enemies. The holocrons can be found through levels. They contain experience, spheres ,new light saber crystals or new costumes. Yes you do customize starkiller’s look with new colors for his blade which range from the basics to orange and black. Costumes are earned every level by default, once you have a costume, you can wear it on any level.
The soundtrack is amazing, with all the great pieces from starwars, and a few specifically made for the game.

The boss battles are basic, and don’t really require any skill whatsoever. As your unable to really use your powers in them if you just keep slashing, you will win. The last 2 bosses however, actually take some ability and creativeness to win.
There are puzzles in the game but they’re just items that flash blue to show you can use a force power to pass, which makes it trial and error on which force power will work.

The game does offer the concept art used when creating the game to unlock which, if you get the game is worth checking out.
The game will take you about 10 hours. I beat it quicker than that and must say it was too short. This coupled with no multiplayer experience makes it have low replay ability. You can replay the single player over with all your powers you earned in the first game but I really don’t think the single player is really worth replaying. The good vs evil “choices” that would affect morality don’t exist in the game. There is only 1 choice, and it is at the end basically saying “watch bad ending or watch good ending”.

Overall, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is a fun action title. This is really almost ruined by a story that was under told without enough presentation. The game is definitely a rental and not worth the buy. You will get bored after you play through it but that play through will be a good time. The game disappointed in some areas but it did accomplish its primary goal, to kick someone’s ass with the force.
I give Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 7.5 downed star destroyers, out of 10.


7.5/10

X-Box 360 Price Drop

As of friday Microsoft droped the Xbox 360's prices making it the cheapest next-gen console.

Arcade Edition- $199

Premium edition ( 60 GB hard drive)- $299

Elite (120 GB hard drive, and ITS BLACK!!) at $399

Gamer M's Review: Cid Miers Civilization Revolution

Cid Miers Civilization Revolution

Genre: Strategy

1-4 Players

Are you ready to get civilized? Civilization Revolution is the Civ franchise’s debut onto the console scene. As you may or may not know, Civ Rev is a turn based strategy game, putting you at the helm of civilization of you very own as you attempt to rule the world. Right off the bat, you have every civilization playable in the game at your disposal as the game leaves nothing to be unlocked but things to find in the game play.

Your Civ starts off as a bunch of nomads in the stone ages(5000 BC) just settling down to build a city and create.. well, civilization. You build up through the years, discovering the opposing Civs, fending off barbarians, acquiring new technology(NUKE!) and new cities. If you have played Civ games before, this is very simple compared to its counterparts. The art design in the game is cartoonish… too carootish for my taste, but if 2k’s public research says cartooish appeals to a wider audience (kids) then I can’t knock them for their decision. Aside from the 10 year old exterior, Civilization Revolution is a solid strategy game at heart. The game play and combat system somehow works well even though I didn’t like it at first. When two soldiers enter combat their stats go into play, but the combat is played out each time so it is possible for a lesser force to win a battle. You can’t control your soldiers in combat, you can only control what battle to send them into.


There are 16 Civs in the game, all with their wacky versions of great leaders as your avatar. For example- if you choose the Greeks your Civ will be represented by Alexander the great. All of the Civs have their own abilities and bonuses making your Civ choice critical to the strategy you use. Like I said to win you have to rule the world, but there are 4 ways to do it, make tons of money(economic), mercilessly killing everyone(domination), sending a colony to a new planet,(science), build the united nations(culture).

The game isn’t without its faults, you have a new map generated every game, however each map isn’t very different from all the others so its kind of repetitive. You can’t move your men through a friendly city (this gets very annoying). The enemy AI is kind of stupid, on easy you can kill a Civs own city and they wont even notice and on hard(deity) everyone seems to hate your Civ for no particular reason(racism). The cpu civilizations don’t have war on one another, just you. This can all be fixed however with other people playing against you as you can ask your friends to move through their land without causing war, everyone is out for themselves, and you can have some serious fun with betrayal. The only problem, you can never connect with someone when searching for a game(ps3) so make sure you have buddies who own the game. You also have a time limit of 2100AC and cannot advance past then which to some who want to keep going will be a bummer.



Overall, Civilization Revolution is a fun turn based strategy game. The problems occur is single player when you have AI which seems to either not know what its doing, or will do anything and everything to kill you. If you only play single player, this game will get old fast, however if your somehow able to find a game online, or set one up with your friends, you can have some great times where each game will play out differently. I give Civilization Revolution 7.5 barbarian kills out of 10.


7.5/10